1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a healthy, an energetic or a nutritious beverage containing creatine as a main ingredient and a process for producing a creatine beverage.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The demand of bottled or canned beverages has been rapidly increasing with the spread of vending machines. Further, water pollution has promoted the extension of the kinds of these beverages from conventional carbonized drink and fruit juice to mineral water, natural water and healthy or nutritious drinks. Above all, healthy drinks are expected to enjoy demand as new popular merchandise depending on the choice and effects of the ingredients.
Whether such demand is met depends on the choice of an active ingredient and the preparation for enhancing the effect of the active ingredient. The beverages to be sold in quantities on the vending machines should be produced at low cost. Further, the ingredients should have stable quality during delivery.
On the other hand, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) prohibits players from taking drugs habitually to increase their physical ability artificially. The list of the drugs prohibited by IOC covers more than 120 kinds. Creatine is one of the amino acids biosynthesized in vertebrates. Ninety-five to ninety-eight % of the creatine in a body is present in muscles, serving to accelerate rapid energy transport in the muscular cells. A high creatine content in skeletal muscles is important for continuation of exercise and postpones the time at which the muscles are felt fatigued. Similarly, the creatine in heart muscles acts to prevent myocardial fatigue in any situation that imposes stress on the heart. The creatine is not included in the list of the drugs prohibited by IOC. In the Barcelona Olympics, much attention was focused on the result that two of the English track and field players who took the creatine won the championship, one in the men's 100-meter final and the other in the women's 400-meter final.
Since the creatine is present in muscles (about 4 grams per K-gram of fresh muscles), a human body can be supplied with the creatine by meat intake. However, it is costly to take a large quantity of the meat for assuring a requisite supply of the creatine. Besides, the creatine content of the meat tends to decrease with a time during storage of the meat or a heating on cooking. Therefore, in a case where the muscles should be developed in a short time as demanded by athletics, it has been a practice to take a creatine solution prepared by dissolving a creatine tablet or powder weighing 1 to 3 grams in moderately warmed water by stirring within 10 minutes from the preparation twice a day. However, since the creatine in a neutral aqueous solution turns into creatinine, which has no function in muscular cells and is excreted in the urine, a creatine aqueous solution does not keep long and will lose its effect unless taken immediately after the preparation.